


and Laeg cut the spear from his body

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Monsters in the Riddermark [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Love, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: The Second and Third Marshals of the Mark ride to battle at the ford of the River Isen.They come home, but neither is quite so hale as they were when last they saw Meduseld.
Relationships: Éomer Éadig & Théoden Ednew, Éomer Éadig & Théodred, Éomer Éadig & Éowyn, Éowyn & Théoden Ednew
Series: Monsters in the Riddermark [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676674
Comments: 39
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



> Happiest of birthdays to my darling L!!

The borders were strangely quiet, this close to Isengard.

“Ha!” Théodred scoffed. “Only because we are already overrun.”

“You are a sour old man,” Éomer scolded him. “Should not your heart be bright? Are we not here to reclaim and repair the border? We are sons of Éorl, cousin, and even the White Wizard should pause in the face of our wrath.”

“Are we to visit great sound and fury upon the old man of the Isen, then?”

Théodred’s face was more his mother’s than his father’s, longer and more delicate than the comely warmth of Théoden King even in increasing age, and the sometimes sharp lines well framed his sharp tongue. 

“I name you pissant,” Éomer said, with as much feeling as he could muster. “What a miserable old bastard you are becoming.”

“And here I thought we were as brothers!” Théodred cried, grinning sidelong up at Éomer. The sun caught just as bright on the flat white of his teeth and the curling gold decoration of his armour, but not as bright as the gleam of the mahtar coming alive at their approach. Light caught like rainbows on her high, curving shoulders, and made a pearl of the brilliant golden-green of her skin, but only when he and Theodred were near at hand. “Fie on you, Éomer son of Éomund! Traitor, I name you, to speak so ill of your kinsman and lord! Fie!”

Around them, their éoreds readied themselves. Firefoot was without rider for this battle, as was Brego, and so they were with the squires and the pages on the edge of the field, away above the ford.

The mahtari had no names. The mahtari, they were told,  _ needed  _ no names. But Éomer had always thought of her as  _ Olos.  _ Mithrandir had it in a song once, when Éomer was so small that he still sat at his mother’s skirts in the Meduseld, and though he spoke no Elvish of any sort he remembered that word. He never knew what it meant, but the roundness of it on his tongue fit with the elegant curves of the mahtar he and Théodred rode together into battle.

She hummed under his palm, when he pressed his bare hand to her flank. Théodred did the same on her other side, and the power of her buzzed all the way up Éomer’s arm to his heart, and then settled.

They climbed aboard. Éomer removed his helm, set it beside Théodred’s, and waited until  _ Olos _ closed around them.

For a moment, Éomer knew the burden of a throne in his future. Every time he and Théodred joined like this, every time Théodred’s joys and worries became, for a heartbeat, Éomer’s joys and worries, his knees buckled. Just for a moment.

Théodred never commented on it, just as Éomer knew better than to mention the way Théodred rolled his shoulders in that same moment, like a man shucking a heavy pack after a long journey. Just for a moment.

Théodred’s spirit was an oddly reserved thing, once they settled into one another. His cousin was such a confident, even  _ kingly  _ man that Éomer would once have assumed him to be just as bright and bubbling-over within as he was without. Théodred was more the sort to bubble  _ under,  _ though, his spirit running steady and strong as the deep waters of the Isen itself. He was smooth and strong, like a new-polished but well-used sword.

Éomer never asked what his own spirit felt like. Some part of him, some craven corner of his heart, was afraid to know. 

* * *

They rode to the ford, where awaited them an army born in the deepest shadow of the White Wizard’s twisting mind.

Like nightmares, the Uruk-Hai sat above the host of orcs. They hulked and rumbled, drawn from deep earth and deeper horror, turned up into the skies to draw their darkness with them into the world.

_ Olos _ gleamed gold and green, shattering rainbows like sunrise across the enamelled armour of the éored around her. She thrummed with strength, and with every shift of Éomer’s back, every tilt of Théodred’s head, she came closer to the ford.

The Uruk-Hai stood unmoving. That was strange. That was  _ new. _

“Now is not the time to fret, cousin,” Théodred said, in the sing-song calm of riding together in  _ Olos’  _ warmth. “Now we must be steady. Now we must be fierce.”

“Resolute,” Éomer agreed, his knee aching as Théodred’s often did in damp weather. It passed in a heartbeat, but he wondered - did Théodred suffer his bruised ribs, suffered in a Dunlending raid a week past? There had been no time to lie up on such injuries, not a moment to catch their breath even in victory, not with Théoden King turned ghoul and dancing to Gríma Wormtongue’s ghastly tune. No, there had been too much for the Second and Third Marshals of the Mark to do, too many battles for  _ Olos _ to fight, and so Éomer had mostly learned to ignore the pain.

“You should wrap your ribs better,” Théodred grumbled, but there is no annoyance in his gruff tone - only concern. Éomer knew his cousin too well to ever take offence at his sometimes rough manner in the field, and loved him too well to take harsh words ill even when they were meant as such. Théodred was all things princely in the Meduseld, doubly so since his father started to fade, and Éomer and Éowyn both stood too high in his favour to ever truly suffer his temper - but in the field? Well, Éomer had watched all but helplessly as his cousin took up a King’s burden without a King’s mantle since Gríma’s influence became something to be feared. Théodred bears it all uncomplaining, and Éomer does wonder  _ how.  _ To sit the throne of the Golden Hall, to be trusted by the Eorlingas to lead them in peace even more than in war, is an honour almost beyond compare. To do it all now, when there is war and faithlessness and dishonour all around them, and to do it without even acknowledgement, much less praise? Surely that is a mark of the great king Théodred is to become, when eventually Théoden King joins their ancestors.

Éomer was useless, beyond their journies with  _ Olos,  _ because he had his own battles to fight against Gríma on a different front - no man would have dared pursue the Fourth Marshal within invitation, when still she and Théoden King rode together in their mahtar, but Éowyn, daughter of Théodwyn, had not their uncle’s might to support her own in these shadowed days. Éomer stood with her when he could, but he was too often abroad putting down Dunlendings here and orcs there, and she refused to raise any complaint with Théodred, who alone might have put Wormtongue out of Edoras.

Until Gríma’s hold over the King was broken, until Rohan was free of the darknes spilling forth from Isengard like a smothering fog, Éowyn would not be safe. And so Éomer braced himself on Théodred’s bad knee, and Théodred steeled himself against �Éomer’s bruised ribs, and they pushed on to the ford, and to victory.

* * *

Still, the Uruk-Hai showed no fear. Still, the orcs did not waver.

Still, the waters of the ford seemed until  _ Olos _ ’ foot touched the riverbed.

Then the world let go its deep breath and remembered that she was at war.

* * *

The mahtari were older than Men. That much, Éomer knew for certain.

Some said that they were a gift from Eru to the Elves, at the dawn of things when all was new and as much evil walked the world as good. Others said that a great Elf-smith wrought the first, others still that they arose in the mithril-mines of Moria before the first dwarves dared there to delve. Éomer knew not where the truth lay, and had always thought simply to be thankful for  _ Olos  _ and for her twin to guard the West-Mark and the East. With two mahtari running alongside the Riders of the Mark, they have held the line for centuries, and have ridden with the Men of Gondor with true honour.

Beneath the mighty paws of Second and Third Marshals of the Mark an orc was so much chaff. Like a mountain lion in form was she, sabre-toothed and sabre-clawed, the banner of the House of Eorl cutting like long-awaited summer through the massed ranks of the Shadow.

And before, always, they had felled the Uruk-Hai. 

* * *

“Glad am I of Éothain!” Théodred cried, catching an Uruk’s blade on  _ Olos’  _ shoulder. “How ill the tide of this battle might turn without him as your second, cousin!”

Éomer would agree, had he the breath. His ribs were alive with pain now, but there was no room for that. There was no  _ time _ \- there was a battle to be fought.

A… A  _ hard  _ battle.

The Uruks were new, as these things went. Some said they were born of Mordor, but Éomer had yet to see an Uruk without a white hand guiding it. They came in ones and twos, never more, and were always killable.

But there were four. They had felled only one so far, but the others were not fighting so hard as usual. They almost seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what Éomer was unsure, preoccupied with the great straight longswords that were so different from the orkish scimtars they usually favoured.

The scimtars, curved as they were, could not gain purchase anywhere on  _ Olos’  _ curving body. The swords, though, catch in the flowing lines of her, tearing gold from green, and-

And tearing-

And  _ Théodred- _

* * *

The Uruk-Hai fled, as though summoned to some other battlefield. The éored should have followed them, and will - Éomer will order them to do so as soon as he can find Théodred.

“The King’s son,” he choked out, still drowning on the ford water heavy in Théodred’s lungs. “Éothain, find him, find my cousin-”

“We have him, Éomer!” Éothain promised, his bright red bear slicked brown beneath the edge of his helm. “Him and you both, come now, let me help you-”

Éothain heaved Éomer clear of the water like a babe from the cradle, making nothing of his heavily enameled armour, making nothing of the weight of Théodred dragging on Éomer’s heart.

“Where is he?” he begged, grabbing at Éothain’s shoulders. “Where is the Prince?”

He could not look back at  _ Olos.  _ He could feel her pain as keenly as Théodred’s, sharper than his own, but she would heal - she had survived worse, and would again, he was sure. 

But Théodred was drowning. Théodred’s lungs were clogged with water.

The pain in Éomer’s chest was not all his bruised ribs. Those were on the right, so why was his left flank so painful?

* * *

Somehow he was ahorse. Éothain lashed his legs to the saddle, and finally he could see Théodred. He could see the bright gold length of  _ Olos’  _ edging trapped under the plate of Théodred’s armour, the blood staining Brego’s bright saddle dull, and worst of all-

The very worst part of it all!

\- was the slack, soft lines of Théodred’s face, against Brego’s braided mane. 

Éomer did not weep when his father died, nor even when his mother followed after. He wept now, though, for his own failure to protect his cousin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I essentially write a version of the prologue of pacrim? Yes. Did I realise that that is what I was doing until I read over it for posting? No. Forgive me, L :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éomer struggles on the return to Edoras - at what cost? He does not yet know.

Éomer was well enough to ride by the time Edoras was within sight. Well, perhaps that was not quite right - he was lucid enough to sit upright in the saddle, trusting that Firefoot would not let him fall. He freed himself just enough from the fog and agony of Théodred’s soul on his own to think clearly, and in thinking clearly he could see the danger in their both returning to the Golden Hall on stretchers. 

Gríma Wormtongue would not be long in taking advantage of such a thing.

“Come, old man,” Éothain said, guiding Éomer first to his feet and then to his horse in the purpled-brightness of the new day. “Let’s get you home, aye? See the lie of the land from atop the hill, with keener eyes than mine.”

Éowyn awaited them, alone in the keeping of their people and their failing uncle alike, worn thin under her burdens. So long as Théoden King lingered, sickly, festering, in the shadow of Gríma’s pale hand, so too must also Éowyn. There is no one in all Arda so brave and true as Éomer’s sister, but even the White Lady’s light must surely be dimmed by leech-handed, poison-minded nightmares such as the Wormtongue.

Éomer could only hope to see Gríma cast out before the rot set too deep. For that, he could only hope that Théodred survived, and that seemed a slim hope indeed.

* * *

The banner of the House of Eorl snapped dark and gold against the pale sky as they came up the hill. It was the in-between blue of neither dawn nor true morning, and while they might have arrived late the night before, Éomer had not had the strength to continue.

He was terrified, then, that his weakness would cost Théodred his life. Bad enough to fail him in battle, but to delay the Prince’s return to Meduseld? To deny the Prince the care of their best healers for his own comfort? What sort of man, what sort of brother-in-arms, would allow such a thing?

Éomer would, apparently. How wretched a thing he was becoming - was this how it had started for Gríma, he wondered? Was it weakness first and malice second? 

He leaned over in the saddle to be sick. Éothain ushered the éoreds away and ahead, especially the four men bearing Théodred’s stretcher, but lingered behind himself, his hand on Éomer’s back.

“You must go to the healers too,” he said. “Come, Éomer, you know it is for the best-”

“I must see the King,” Éomer said. “And my sister, Éothain, I cannot do anything before I see that Éowyn is well.”

He felt close to madness, terrified that the doors of the hall above them would open to reveal Théoden dead and Éowyn gone, and then Théodred would die and it would be Éomer alone against Gríma, and behind him, Saruman.

What was Éomer Éomundsson against the White Wizard? Nothing. Nothing at all, save a fly to be swatted clean from the air.

“I will go to Éowyn,” Éothain promised him. “And you know well that Grimbold has gone before the King. To the healers - go, now. You know you must.”

  
  


* * *

And he must have gone, for all that he could not remember going. He must have gone, and he must have slept, long and deep.

Sweet Sigerun, third-healer, the bravest woman in Rohan - or the stupidest - for marrying Éothain, had thrown herself across him the moment he awoke, snapping impatiently for him to calm down.

“Be  _ quiet,  _ man!” she hissed. “You will wake the whole of Edoras with your raving! Hush, now. You are not so fully grown that I will not turn you over to the Key-Keeper for a good hammering!”

Wilrun, who held the keys in one hand and the paddle in the other, had been their great terror as children. Éomer was half-mad enough with pain to fear her even now, standing near two foot taller than her.

Sigerun stayed across him until he calmed, the dark blonde of her hair familiar in the flickering lantern light. Éomer had stood witness the day she married Éothain, had stood sponsor to their son at his naming, and if Éomer had a closest friend beyond Éothain, it was she.   


“Where is Théodred?” he asked, hating the weak rasp of his voice. “The Prince, Sigerun. Where is he?”

“Still with the living,” she promised him, pushing herself back into the chair by his bed. “Éowyn is with him. Éothain and Grimbold are sitting with her by turns, for fear of shadowed eyes and reaching hands.”

Sigerun’s hands were chapped and pink, resting on the rise of her pregnant belly, and Éomer took the nearest one and kissed it. 

“And the King?” he asked, knowing already that he would be disappointed by her answer. “My uncle, Sigerun?”

“The moon,” she said. “Half-waned, where even recently he was the sun. But you knew that already, old man.”

She did not let go of his hand.

* * *

Éowyn came to him later, with clothes over her arm and his good boots in hand. 

“You look better than I expected,” she said, “having seen Théodred.”

Brave and true and completely without tact - aye, that was Éowyn as he loved her best. She laid the clothes by his side and turned her back smartly, and he took the invitation to dress.

“He yet lives?”

“Aye,” she said. “Just. I have tried to make Uncle come to him, but none of us could convince him. Not even Elfhelm can make himself heard.”

Éomer’s chest felt heavy and tight. His own cracked ribs were near to healing, which meant that all the pain was Théodred’s, still tied to Éomer’s body because their bond within  _ Olos _ had been broken over a sword instead of neatly unlaced, as they were used to.

“While he yet lives,” Éowyn said, “there is hope that we might save Uncle, too.”

Éomer was of the opinion that only Éowyn had any real chance of getting through to their uncle. She had always been his favourite.

“You should come to dinner,” she said. “It will do everyone good to see that only one of you was injured at the Fords.”

Éomer touched his hand to the sharply painful spot under his ribcage, opposite his near-healed ribs. Théodred’s pain. The thickness of his breathing, as well, was Théodred’s, his lungs still heavy with water. The ache in his heart was at least his own, but that he would keep to himself. Éowyn’s straight shoulders needed no other burdens to weigh them down.

“Who set my hair?” he asked, touching the thick braid hanging over his shoulder. Someone had unwound the plaits in his beard, too, washed it and brushed out the tangles and plaited it afresh to neatly frame his mouth. “It was not you, sister. You would have braided my mouth shut.”

“And gladly, to keep you from speaking out of turn!” she said tartly, turning to face him with a smile. “We need silver tongues now, brother, and you have never had a knack for poetry.”

That Éowyn wore a dirk on her belt even here, in the halls of healing, spoke greater poetry than even the finest Elvish wordsmiths might have managed. Still. She was likely right - Éomer was better known for his temper than his manners, and would need to closely guard his tongue until he knew that Théodred was recovering.  _ If _ Théodred was recovering. 

“Control your face,” Éowyn advised, tossing his sash around his neck and settling it neatly over his shoulders. The ends just brushed his belt, and she fussed at that, too, just for a moment. “I wish- well. Many of us wish for many things. It matters little.”

Éomer tipped her face up with a touch to her chin. Her eyes, darker grey than their father’s were, were bright. Worry and tears, both tamped down firmly so none but him would get close enough to see them. Not while Théodred lay near-dead in a room nearby, and not while Théoden King sat unknowing on his own throne.

If only Éowyn had someone like Éothain, or Sigerun. She had him, and Théodred, and since their parents’ death she had been closer to Théoden than to anyone. They could not have ridden a mahtar together otherwise. Éomer had been so busy managing the business of inheriting their parents’ estates and affairs, the business of learning to ride with the éored, that for their first years in Edoras he had neglected her. 

So many mistakes. Neglect and ignorance and foolishness, too busy with his pride and his duty to see to it that his responsibilities were seen to.

“Come,” Éowyn said. “Dinner. Lean on me if you must, but do not let anyone see that you are doing it.”

* * *

The hall seemed cold when Éomer walked in on his sister’s arm. He knew well enough that it was not - the fires were crackling merrily in their hearths, and the thick candles shone bright and golden in their stands.

Théoden King sat at the head of the table, not strong and straight with cup in hand and laughter on his voice. No, instead the King was slumped, ale staining his white shirt and the juice of the fine haunch of venison dripping into a beard more grey and grime than its true snowy white.

Once, not so very long ago, Théoden King’s hair was brighter gold than Éomer’s own. Had not his uncle and Théodred teased him at his last birthday that he had more silver in his beard than either of them? 

“Lean on me,” Éowyn said, guiding him to the seat above Éothain’s, above Grimbold’s, above all save the King’s own. 

Théodred’s seat, at his father’s right hand. 

“Lean on me,” Éowyn said, squeezing his arm tight, but careful - only Éothain and Sigerun welcomed him with anything more than joy at his recovery, and they only because they knew him well enough to see his terror. What had he done? Why had he not turned quicker, turned at least so that  _ Olos _ bore the Uruk-hai’s blade on  _ his  _ side, not Théodred’s?

Éomer even managed a thin smile for Wulfstan, hunched behind the King’s chair, when the old man broke in his vigil of staring death at the back of Gríma’s head just long enough to acknowledge their arrival.

“Lean on me,” Éowyn said, “and do not let them see.”

He did as he was told. There was no other choice, not until Théodred woke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite the structure I intended for this story but... Here we are.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From gravest darkness, Éowyn's path brings her into light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a few hints and such about the changes wrought on this world by the existence of the mahtari, but they'll be better explained in the next two chapters!
> 
> For May - a week late :D

“Good my lord,” Éowyn tried, holding tight to the King’s strong, limp hands. “Will you not come?”

Her uncle’s eyes, so clear and summer-bright only a short while ago, were rheumy and dull. He had become an old man, every drip of Gríma’s poison in his ear adding a wrinkle here and an ache there, until he had become this. Grey and worn, his mighty shoulders sloped and his clever mind as dull as soon his sword would be from lack of use.

“Uncle,” she begged. “For Théodred, sire. If not for my sake, then surely for his?”

She thought she saw something, some light of recognition that proved that her uncle was still inside this shell of a man, but it faded the moment Gríma’s dirty-nailed hand landed on his shoulder.

“Do you think the King has not worries enough?” he said, in that curdling lilt of his. “Is not the burden of protecting the realm burden enough for one man to bear, without _this?”_

Éowyn thought that any man would rather see his son before death than not, especially a man who had become so neglectful of his duties. That a mahtar rested unridden between angry Snowmane and restless Windfola in the royal stables spoke loud of Gríma’s success in shackling the King to idleness on his throne, but that Théoden King would let Théodred die without farewell proved the King’s spirit broken.

For Théodred would die, and soon. Of that, Éowyn was certain. 

“Uncle,” Éomer said, his hand - clean, steady, as far from Gríma’s slithering paws as possible - heavy on her shoulder. “Please. Even just to hear your voice might soothe the Prince. Will you not come?”

Éowyn went to the Fords with Éomer this morning, under heavy guard, to return his and Théodred’s mahtar. She was damaged, badly damaged, but they got her home - Éowyn could hardly bear the journey under the weight of Éomer’s guilt and grief, and she feared for him, when Théodred died.

She feared Gríma more.

* * *

Éowyn tended to wear white when she visited in the houses of healing for much the same reason they all wore white shirts under their armour. The launderies were under strain enough at present, for want of able hands. White was easier to bleach and scrub than dyed cloth, and nothing save bleaching and scrubbing really lifted blood from linen.

Théodred’s white linen shirt had been given up for scraps and bandages, too torn and ravaged to be saved when they finally got it off him. It had taken half the hair on his chest along with it, and even that had not roused him. 

But Éowyn wore white, usually, and today was no different. She wore a white gown to come and change Théodred’s dressings, and she wore this particular white gown because the draping sleeves allowed her to hide the worst of his injuries from Éomer. Her brother insisted on coming with her - because the King would not follow her to Théodred’s sick room or because Gríma _would_ \- but she had seen his agony at Théodred’s pain the first time, and could not bear to see it again.

“Bring me the little white pot,” she said, pointing to the table on the other side of the room. “And the green one.”

One held honey and dandelion, the other a strange, pungent paste that Sigerun made from mouldy bread, and the two were to be applied to the inflammed, swollen skin around Théodred’s wound. The stitches, at least, were immaculate - Éowyn was glad that First-Healer Cwenhild had taken the Prince’s care into her own hands. Cwenhild did not often descend from the shadowed, fragrant depths of the apothecary above the halls of healing. She had stormed down the stairs at the first cry of _The Prince! The Prince and Third Marshal!_ , and she had kicked aside Théodred’s riders as though her pale hair was not full of half-dried lavender and meadowsweet flowers, scattering them sweet and restful beneath everyone’s boots.

Nothing had been restful in Meduseld in so long that Éowyn saw that. She saw the purple and white crushed underfoot and thought _ah, of course._ She had not dared speak of her fears to Éomer, not after the first time or two and he had seemed strangled with helplessness, and Théodred had already been weighed down by the crown still sitting on his father’s brow and had needed her troubles even less than Éomer had. 

But Théodred. Better to think on Théodred, who they might save from the white hand of doom, and Cwenhild’s perfectly even stitches holding his heart in his chest.

Éowyn’s stitches were among the best in Edoras, better than anyone’s save the Healers themselves and perhaps the King’s, but she would not have dared touch Théodred’s wounds unless there was no other choice. A long shard of his and Éomer’s mahtar’s shining golden trim had slid deep under his armour and shredded through his flank, and that Cwenhild had managed to bind it all together at all was cause for celebration. Éothain had told her that all they had dared to do in the field was to bind him all up in heavy bandages, and it had been just enough to get him home with the intention of begging Cwenhild’s aid on their return. 

Under anyone else’s care, he would be dead. Éowyn was sure of that. But this, at least, she could do for him - peel away the old dressings, reapply Sigerun’s clever poultices, and apply fresh dressings. There was naught else that could be done, unless the King came and prayed over his son. That might stir Théodred, where nothing else had so far.

Éomer set the two pots by Éowyn’s left hand, and remained. Staring over her shoulder, between the drapes of her sleeves, to the ruin of Théodred’s side - Bema willing it would not be the ruin of them all.

* * *

Éowyn had been too young when her parents died to remember them truly - for her, there had been Éomer, and Théodred, and Uncle, and vague shapes that must have been her father and her mother.

Éowyn had been too young, when her parents died, to have any part in their funerals. She had attended funerals once she was old enough, but death had spared the House of Eorl since Théodwyn’s death and so she had no role in any of those funerals beyond mourner and guest. She knew, mostly, what was needed for a funeral, because she had been well trained - Wilrun, Key-Keeper and bravest woman in Edoras, perhaps in all of Rohan, who did not fear Gríma Wormtongue even though she feared his influence, had taken as firm a hand in Éowyn and Éomer’s training as the King had, from the moment of their arrival in Meduseld. They could lead an éored and they could mind a keep as easily as breathing, but this was no éored and no keep.

This was Théodred. Still and cold, with the sharply smiling lines of his face smoothed by death, he was less even than a ghost, but he was all that was left nonetheless. All that was left of them all, in a way.

Gríma had touched her in the scant moments after Théodred’s last breath, his grasping hand tight on her arm. She would have shaken him off, and should have been quicker to do so - but Théodred was still warm, the shock still an agony, and Éomer’s grief was hotter and more laden with guilt than hers.

“Wilrun has promised to arrange it all,” she said, passing a waterskin through the bars of Éomer’s cell. His face was all bruises, miserable stormclouds of purple and red-black masking sorrow and anger in equal measure. “But I am his last free family - should I not arrange it all?”

“I know Aldwine did much when Father and Mother died,” Éomer said - and Éomer had done much when Aldwine died, Éowyn remembered that on their visit back to Aldburg for his burial. He had led the singing of the laments, too, but those Éowyn knew well. They had buried too many brave men and women of the muster in recent months, and with Théodred and Éomer so often away and Uncle so failed, Éowyn had represented their family at all of the funerals.

All of them. She had comforted so many children who had been left alone in the world, without even the comfort of uncle and cousin. She had learned how to balance a child on her hip and still circle her breathing for the singing. 

But this was a great deal more than just singing, and it was more than just an underfed babe to carry on her hip. This was the whole or Rohan looking to her in the absence of King or Prince or Third Marshal - Fourth Marshal, was Éowyn of Aldburg, the White Lady, and alone she stood against the White Wizard while his slaves held her Uncle and brother in bondage.

Éowyn was used to standing a little apart - such was the lot of being the sole daughter of Eorl left in Meduseld, among a family of men. Such was the lot of being the King’s beloved niece, among the women of Meduseld who should have been her friends, as Éothain was Éomer’s. 

She was not used to standing alone, though. She was used to standing proud at Uncle’s shoulder, flanked by Théodred and Éomer. 

Éomer’s hands covered hers on the bars of his cell.

“Little sister,” he said, strangled by the guilt that shone clear in his eyes, so blue compared with her own dark grey. “We all have failed you, haven’t we?”

Not one of them had failed her - they had been betrayed to a whole array of dooms, and it was not their fault that they were just men, with no way to stave off a wizard’s attacks. 

Doubtless Mithrandir was busy protecting Gondor, or consorting with Elves. From the stories, he did little else.

“I must go,” she said. “Sigerun said that she will help me bathe the body and prepare him for the embalmers.”

Éomer kissed her hands. She could only pray that he would survive his imprisonment long enough to see some pride restored to Rohan, before Gríma leeched it all away.

* * *

While she was singing, with her mother’s gold on her brow and her grandmother’s blue-black silk veiling her hair, Éowyn could not bring herself to look at the tomb. 

It had been prepared a liftime ago, when Elfhild had fought her last and bloodiest battle to bring Théodred forth into life. Some said it was Bema’s own blessing on Théodred, that the King loved him so well even after the price paid for his life, but Théoden King had never held with such rot - Éowyn had seen her uncle lay men low for daring insult Elfhild’s memory, for daring to suggest that his grief for her should have soured his love for their son.

And now, as Théodred was laid enshrouded at his mother’s side, in the still and the dark of the stone-doored tomb, Théoden King slumped in his throne away in the Golden Hall and offered no song.

Éowyn sang harder. Éomer would be singing in the cells, with Éothain and the others of his éored who had no children and so could afford to remain loyal to their Marshal. Éowyn’s own riders, those she had not sent home to Aldburg for their own safety, were arrayed behind her, mourning cloaks dark over their green-washed steel and enamel. They sang as hard as she, fair Sunngifu with her Elvish-pale hair and towering Celmund, the other half-score she had dared to keep on hand. A far cry from a full éored, but enough to at least keep the peace in Edoras, for now.

She sang harder still. Sunngifu’s hand, bare of her prettily silvered gauntlets, landed heavy on her shoulder, and she felt lighter for it.

On the plains below the city, there were three Walkers. But for the moment, there was only the lament.

* * *

The wizard shone against the gloom of Théoden King’s frailty like the stars against the heavenly dark. Éowyn hated him for it, and hated the Elf who was holding her back from standing between her King and this Wizard’s War that was being fought in his head.

“Uncle!” she cried, struggling against the impossible strength. “Leave him! You will kill him!”

“Listen to the girl!” Gríma snarled. “He is too deep in thrall! You have _lost,_ Gandalf Greyhame!”

How foolish Gríma was, to think Mithrandir unchanged! Could he not see it? Could he not feel it under his skin, like music in a higher key playing in the next room after a lifetime of deep, deep drums? There was something at work here, some strangeness known only to wizards and elves and high men, but Éowyn could not understand it. All she could understand was that her uncle’s pained cries clawed in her gut the way Théodred’s final rasping lungfuls must have burned in Éomer’s chest even as Gríma’s men had beaten the breath out of him.

How Théodred would have thrilled to see this. His father’s imprisonment under Gríma’s poison, under Saruman’s thumb, had pained him more than any other grief, and Éowyn wished so painfully that he might have lived just a few days more, just so they might have the farewell they deserved.

The Dwarf had Gríma underfoot, holding him as surely as the Elf held her, and the worm’s tongue seemed turned indeed - Éowyn would have spat on him, had he been close enough.

The light that spilled in the door and bounced off Mithrandir’s robes shone on the Dwarf’s armour and the tooling of the Elf’s wristguards and on Sunngifu’s pale hair, on the other side of the hall.

It shone on Théoden King’s face. On his hair, so white and thick under the filth, and on his brightening eyes.

Éowyn had missed his eyes. They were a darker blue than Éomer’s, a truer blue than Théodred’s, and always so keen. Always so sharp, until Saruman’s hold had dulled them.

But they were sharp now. At a nod from the man who had come in with Mithrandir, the Elf released Éowyn, and she stumbled to the dais, to his side.

“My lord?” she whispered, not daring to hope even as the pink returned to his face and his nose turned ruddy with health. 

“Éowyn,” he murmured, brushing the tears from her cheeks with steady hands. “I know your face.”

She wept. How could she not?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Théoden King is restored - what now for the House of Eorl in these troubled days?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *taps post button* is this thing on?

Éowyn left Théoden King alone with the simbelmynë and his grief in the first two days after his restoration, and wished Mithrandir might do the same. Her uncle had lost that which he treasured most and been given no chance to say farewell, and even had she not known him so well, Éowyn would have known how heavily that guilt weighed on him. 

Snowmane was no longer furious, the golden mahtar no longer abandoned, and soon Windfola would have the run of the Mark. That was all for the better, as bright a hope as the King’s golden-again hair, but it was not enough to hide the gulf of Théodred’s absence. Nothing could do that - not within the realm, and certainly not within their family. 

Éomer’s grief was a sharp, brittle thing. Éowyn had no real idea how to comfort her brother, and wished not to trouble her too-troubled uncle for his counsel. It was hard enough for him to bear his own pain while being forced to make a choice that would either save or doom the whole of Rohan. They spoke together some, her brother and her uncle, but Théodred had always been the one to tease truths out of all the affection, and it seemed impossible to Éowyn that they would ever be able to share the reality of Théodred’s loss without him there to trip them into it.

How she missed him. She had sometimes wondered if it should not have been he that she rode a mahtar with, and Éomer with their uncle, because Théodred’s steady spirit and boundless heart had always brought out the best in her even more than his father’s warmth thawed her natural reserve. When she was out of sorts, always she could sit by Théodred’s side and find calm in the still-water silence of him, their quiet broken only by the pull of his needle through his hoop or the clack of her knitting needles. 

It was so strange to think that she would never ride another horse garbed in one of Théodred’s beautiful goldworked saddle blankets. Rohan taught her women and men alike to wield sword and needle both, but Théodred had been beloved for loving both equally, and for being as generous a hearthkeeper as he was fierce in battle. Éomer was loved for being so bold, a beacon against Saruman’s cloying darkness, but he would need to think hard on his choice of queen, when the time came - he tried, with an earnestness that did endear him to many, but he would need a wife as sure of her place as Key-Keeper Wilrun.

The goldwork embroidery on her tight archer’s cuffs caught the light, and her breath.

Perhaps no one would notice if she absented herself for just half-an-hour. Théodred’s rooms had not been emptied yet, and there might be some echo of him there that could offer comfort to her tears. 

* * *

It was cowardice that drove him. He thought the King saw it in him, and forgave it.

Éowyn would never admit to seeing weakness in him, and so insisted he was being responsible, adhering to his duty. He was now Second Marshal, even if the thought of it made him feel sick to his stomach, she Third Marshal, and the duty of collecting those riders from the far outposts so they might form an éored at the coming battle was his now. 

Théodred had been so good at this. Théodred could ride out into the wilds of the Mark, into the strange places that bordered the Forest and the Wood, and charm the lonely men and their horses into battle with a tender word, a cutting jest, even with just a shared quiet. Éomer had no such charm, was too brash, without Théodred’s easy manner or the King’s charisma or even Éowyn’s sharper kindness, that came out all in brusque words and gentle hands.

But he would try. He had failed Théodred in life, and could not fail him in death.

“Walk with me, Éomer,” the King said, clapping a mighty hand to Éomer’s shoulder. Many turned from their preparations to look at the noise, and most smiled - that, at least, Éomer could do. He knew it heartened people to see him and Éowyn so close with their uncle, and now more than ever they had to seem united. There was too much at risk in these shadowed days for the House of Eorl to dare collapse a second time. “Come, nephew - let us look across these lands of ours, and see what it is we must save.”

Spread out below them, their people were busy with preparations for the long journey to Helm’s Deep. Children laughed and shrieked amidst their harrowed parents, and that more than anything steeled Éomer’s crumbling resolve. It would be so easy to ride with Uncle and Éowyn, to throw himself at whatever crashed against Helm’s great walls, but doing so would mean there would be no rearguard to guard Rohan’s future.

He and Éowyn had been just like these children, once. When their mother died, and Uncle came to Aldburg to gather them home to Edoras, they had not understood that this was a true farewell - Mother and Father had been gone before, off to battle in the mahtar Éomer and Théodred had inherited too few years later, and this had seemed no different. Éomer could still remember the flowers Éowyn had worn in her hair that morning, cornflowers bright enough to make even her grey eyes seem blue.

Below, on the plain, a girl with Elf-pale hair scattered with purple meadowsweet ran past with red-haired brothers on her tail - for these children, for the children Théodred should have had, for a chance at true happiness for Éowyn, Éomer would be strong. 

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice as raw as it had been when Éothain pulled him from the ford. “Had I just been quicker-”

“Do not undermine Théodred’s death to service your own pride, nephew,” Uncle said, without any of the harshness Éomer surely deserved. “Had you turned and taken the wound that killed him, do you think my son could have borne such a grief? He loved you as a brother, lad. He could not have stood in a world empty of you without seeking to tear it apart.”

“Better for the realm had I taken the sword,” Éomer insists, “even if grief might have weakened Théodred for a time!”

Théoden smiles. Éomer is surprised enough to stop talking.

“Théodred,” he says, “always reminded me of your mother. Your sister does as well, but as a young woman - ah, Théodwyn was just as bright and sharp as my son. They played their parts well, I grant you that, but they were each soft underneath it all. Théodred would have been lost to me just as Théodwyn was, had he lost you as she lost Éomund.”

Éomer’s father died in  _ Olos.  _ His mother died that day, too, even though she endured for another year and a day.

“Théodred,” Éomer says, “would never have allowed his grief to interfere with his duty.”

The King’s hand is warm on Éomer’s cheek.

“You were as a brother to my son,” he says, “and you are as a son to me, Éomer. Do not look to me for condemnation. I love you too well to ever damn you.”

* * *

Éomer looked kingly in the saddle, with his helm under his arm. He had always been a fine man, taller than any other in Edoras and massive with it, but something in him had shifted since he and Uncle shared counsel atop the hill that morning. Were times better, Éowyn would have teased him about it.

Firefoot and Windfola nickered affectionately at one another when Éowyn came close at his side. The brooch holding his cloak at the shoulder had been their mother’s, the bronze-chased bracers pinching his white linen sleeves their father’s, and the gold buckle of his belt had been Théodred’s - not the Second Marshal’s, not the Prince’s, but Théodred’s, a gift Éowyn had chosen for his birthday-before-last.

She was wearing a brooch of their father’s, their mother’s arm-guard, and the clasps holding her hair back had been gifts from Éomer and Théodred. Garbed in the King’s own rich green and bright russet, they could not have shown better for the House of Eorl if they tried. Still, she felt barely enough. Perhaps that was why Éomer’s sudden regality surprised her so.

“Ride hard,” she said, clasping his forearm as tight as she could. “And come back to us.”

“I always do,” he promised, leaning down from his towering height to kiss her brow. 

“You almost did not,” she said, and reached up to touch his face when his cheeks flamed crimson with shame. “I do not blame you, Éomer - was I not also lost, when Uncle was buried under Wormtongue’s malice? We have found one another again, and I could not bear to be without you once more. So come back to us.”

“You are wiser than your years, little sister,” he said. “I am sorry that you have had to become so. We all have asked so much-”

“And given more,” she said, cutting him off before he could become truly maudlin. “Now ride hard, brother. We need every sword we can find.”

Éothain raised the warhorn to his lips the moment Éomer joined him, and blew a loud kiss to Sigerun as soon as he dropped it - Éowyn envied them that ease, but such a thing was not her due. She could not imagine showing her heart so openly.

“Sweet child,” Uncle said, arriving from behind her in full splendour, like the dawn. “Come now - ride with me for now, and we will not feel so lonely.”

“Of course,” Éowyn said, letting him take her hand and kiss it in thanks. She never felt lonely within her family - only with everyone else.

* * *

The ride to Helm’s Deep was rough, across mountain roads and ladened down with those who could not ride themselves. Éowyn and Windfola offered themselves as packhorse for any who needed it, helping crones into the saddle and surrounding them with thrilled children while another rode on Éowyn’s hip, and this - this was what it meant, to be a daughter of Eorl. To be among their people, keeping them with warmth and war in equal measure, there could be nothing more important.

She traced her fingers over Théodred’s goldwork while she walked in Windfola’s shadow, listening with half an ear to the story the great-grandmother in her saddle was telling to the babes huddled under her shawl. Lord Aragorn was just a little away, laughing at Lord Gimlí and Lord Legolas, and Éowyn wondered - what did love feel like, anyway? 

She had never really admired a man in a way that had made her shy of him, as the songs said maidens always felt of men they love, but she felt shy of Lord Aragorn. He was one of the high men she had heard tell of, that much she knew, but it could not be that. Did not the high blood of Gondor flow in her veins, Morwen’s legacy in Rohan? Éowyn had never allowed anyone to make her feel any less than she was, not even when she had to fold herself small to survive Gríma’s assault on her uncle. She felt wrong-footed around Lord Aragorn in a way she did not understand all the same, though. Surely that was love?

She would ask Théodred, if he were here. She could not imagine discussing such things with Uncle, and Éomer would only become flustered and offer to speak to Aragorn on her behalf, but Théodred would listen, let her ramble her feelings into some kind of sense, and then set aside his hoop. What would he say?

_ I think, little cousin,  _ he would say,  _ that you might wish to look a little closer at this Lord Aragorn before doing him the honour of granting him your heart.  _

Bema, if she were to pursue him and he accepted, she might end up Queen of Gondor - she heard him talking with Lord Gimlí, knew of the fate he had settled on for himself, and wondered how she might like such a thing. Uncle told tales of his youth in Gondor, and Éowyn always thought the pale stone of Minas Tirith sounded as remote as it did beautiful, splendid but cold. 

There were many gardens in Minas Tirith, she had heard. Éowyn thought she might like a garden, someday, if such things were possible against all this war.

Ah, well. Love was not for her - she had Uruk Hai to slay, a mahtar to ride with her uncle, and now Aldburg to rule, since Éomer would be busy as Uncle’s heir. 

Already there had been so much change, so much mess. She would not tempt fate with even idle daydreams of a fate beyond her duty.

“What grim aspect you wear, Éowyn!” Sunngifu hailed her, swinging feather-light from her saddle with a smile. “Surely old mother’s story is not so serious as your face?”

“You must not tease the Lady so,” the little girl on Éowyn’s hip scolds Sunngifu, undaunted by Éowyn’s second in her silver-chased armour, with her twin swords, as any child of the Mark should be. In the world as it should be, no child should have cause to fear anything at all, but there was no hope for that so long as the Shadow burned in the East. 

“Ah, little shieldmaiden,” Sunngifu laughed, swinging the girl up onto her shoulders. “How bold you are! I may tease the Lady, though, because we are friends, and I promise to mean nothing by it.”

“Is the rider your friend, my lady?” the little girl - oh, what was her  _ name,  _ Éomer never forgot a name but it sometimes felt that Éowyn never remembered one - asked, both arms wrapped around Sunngifu’s head like a crown. 

“My dearest friend,” Éowyn assured her, wondering if her  _ grim aspect  _ remained in the face of Sunngifu’s rapidly ruddying cheeks. “And my captain, little one, so we must wonder if she came here with a message for me. Might I speak to her alone?”

“I only came to be sure you ate,” Sunngifu said, once they had deposited the little one among the knot of children who’d gathered in Éowyn’s wake. “You’ve gotten so thin we were half afraid you might drop your sword.”

Éowyn laughed at that, long and hearty as she had not laughed since her uncle’s beard turned grey. Drop her sword indeed! No, Éowyn Théodwynsdottir would sooner let her uncle die than drop her sword!

“I’ll drop  _ you!”  _ she promised, still laughing. “But come - let us eat something, if it will stop you spouting such foolishness.”

* * *

“I know it is not the same,” Éothain said, uncertain as Éomer had never before seen him. “But the Wizard will empty the bowels of Isengard for this assault, Éomer, and we will need our best to counter him. Our best is the mahtari.”

_ Olos  _ was with them - pulled on a sleigh to this meeting point, where Éomer had gathered as many riders as there were to be found. He had failed to charm them, but he had somehow impressed on them that this was a fight not for Théoden King nor for Mithrandir, but for Rohan herself. For the babes who would grow with the foals still unsteady on their legs, for the children who so cheerfully stole their parents’ warhorses from unwatched stables, for the greymanes who had already given their lives to the éored and deserved the peace to see their children and grandchildren grow - for them, even the scarcest, wildest riders of the Mark would come. 

Éomer could only hope that it was enough. Gathering those exiled by Gríma had been simple, and quick as well, but he was sick at the thought of arriving late to Helm’s Deep and finding that Mithrandir’s wizardry was not so strong as Saruman’s, and all was lost.

This plan of Éothain’s would be a boon such as he would not have dared hope for, but would it work? Éomer had never ridden a mahtar save with Théodred and, a handful of times, with Éowyn. He knew-  _ had known  _ Théodred like his own image in the looking glass, and knew his sister better than she might have liked, but… Did he not know Éothain just as well? Had Éothain not been his closest friend from his first days in Edoras? 

Perhaps it would work. Surely it would work. It had to.

“We might try,” he conceded. “She will wake, I think, if you suit her as a rider.”

“I must remember to warn any woman who thinks to make a husband of you,” Éothain said, nudging Éomer in the side with his elbow - he flinched a little, still haunted by Théodred’s pain, but Éothain did not notice. Éomer was glad of it. “How will she ever compete with the true love of your life?”

Éomer rolled his eyes, tugging off his gloves and moving toward  _ Olos.  _ As beautiful as ever, her wounds had healed immaculately since her breaking on the ford of the Isen - to Éomer’s eye, the newness was visible, was shocking, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything of it, and so he said nothing. It seemed fitting that he should see Théodred scarred into their mahtar, even if no one else could.

She hummed awake at his approach, sunlight splintering into a rainbow on her round shoulders. The thrum of her under his bare hand was all the benediction he had sought from his uncle, because if  _ she  _ did not blame him for her injury, for Théodred’s death, then perhaps the blame was not his to bear.

Éothain must have laid his hand against her other shoulder, because the music of her changed just beyond the edge of Éomer’s hearing. It was not as it had been when he and Théodred were together with her, not even as it was with Éowyn. There was a different undercurrent, something strange that he could not name, but there was also harmony - harmony enough to ride together, he did not know, but they had to try. 

Éomer would shoulder the greater share of the burden. Théodred had shown him how to do it, so that they could balance any injuries the other was suffering, and he would do it until Éothain found his feet, at least. It was dangerous to do it for long, but he would do it - for Rohan, he  _ could  _ do it.

They settled in.  _ Olos  _ closed around them. Beside him, Éothain forced his breathing to slow.

* * *

Great whooping cheers heralded the first sighting of the Deeping Wall, and Éowyn found herself singing along with the children as they crossed the final peak before the deep descent. Sunngifu was with her still, bouncing empty nutshells off Lord Gimlí’s beautiful helm and dropping them into Lord Legolas’ quiver with arcing throws, much to the delight of the children, and they had been joined by Celmund, who had tossed a child up onto each of his massive shoulders and was singing louder than any of them, his voice echoing down into the valley like Helm’s great horn. 

Éowyn paused a moment at the crest of the valley, waving Sunngifu and Celmund on ahead of her. She thought Lord Aragorn looked back at her, just for a moment, and almost laughed - why would such a man love her, even if she did love him? No matter. Windfola was quiet under Sunngifu’s guidance, their people were soon to be gathered safely behind the Deeping Wall, and the hot baths of the Hornburg were calling to her even now.

The jingle of his ornamented bridle heralded Snowmane’s arrival, and her uncle with him. Théoden swung down to stand at her side as lightly as a man half his age, and she was so glad to have him restored that she could have wept.

“You seem well, niece,” he said, kissing her temple and glancing down into the valley - to her friends or to their esteemed guests, she could not guess. “Eager for the bath?”

“Am I so predictable?” she asked, laughing a little, and looped her arm through his. Oh. He was wearing a shirt with goldwork on the cuffs, peeping out above his gloves, and she was glad of it - glad that he had some small piece of Théodred to carry with him. “I suppose I am. And you, uncle? Doubtless there will be a boar half-roasted already by the time we have the gates closed.”

"Doubtless!” he agreed, squeezing her hand where it rested on his bracer. “I would have you rest at least a little, dear one - will you promise me that?”

“I will rest when our people are safe,” she offered. “I can promise no more, sire.”

“Here, at least," Théoden King said, sunset catching brilliant gold on the crown of his hair, "we will be safe. Even Saruman's white hand cannot think to find purchase on the Deeping Wall."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the shadow of the valley, below the Deeping Wall, Saruman's host gathers. 
> 
> Across the Mark, Éomer rides - but will he reach the Hornburg in time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finishing a multichapter story within six months? Who is she.

As the second day of fighting drew toward night, the golden mahtar cleared ten yards of the wall with one snarling sweep of her massive arm, and beside Éowyn, the King laughed.

“Ah!” he cried, shoulders rolling with their mount’s. “I had forgotten, Éowyn! But Saruman will never forget - we will never allow it!”

She laughed with him, so overjoyed to have the familiar high-summer warmth of him with her once more that even the Wizard’s great and terrible host could not stymie her now. 

The orcs seemed endless. No matter how many of them were thrown from the walls, two more were always ready to replace them - Sunngifu’s Elf-fair hair was dark with rain and black blood both, and Celmund hoarse from bellowing answer to every orc-cry they dared to raise in challenge. Éowyn kept a careful eye on them, for the children who had been pressed into service with sturdy old swords and uncertain mail were with Éowyn’s ten riders, one-twelfth a full éored but still fierce and mighty for lack of their fellows.

She whooped a cheer when Celmund cut an orc intent on slaughtering one of the children clean in two, and her uncle’s pride flashed across their bond like sunlight. 

Lord Gimlí seemed always near at hand, too. Éowyn had found him in the armoury the night before the fighting began, brooding over his pipe as Théodred sometimes used over a cup of hot cider, and she had lingered lest he wish to share the weight sitting so obviously on his heart.

“It is a grim day,” he had said, “that puts swords in the hands of babes, is it not?”

Aye, a grim day indeed - Éowyn never knew aught but war, not truly, but her uncle made certain that she never saw battle until she was old enough to choose it for herself. She had itched to fight alongside him and Théodred and Éomer, but it had been one of the few things Théoden King and his heir had agreed on without discussion - Éowyn now saw, so clearly, why they had been so adamant on that one issue.

The wall rumbled under them, and for a terrible moment Éowyn thought the orcs had set more of Saruman’s fire to the ancient stone of the Deeping Wall - but no. This was not some dreadful new enemy that they could not counter.

This was one of the Uruk Hai. A monster bearing a massive sword, straight where the orcs and Uruks usually carried curved blades. A monster whose abyssal chestplate was edged with a length of brilliant gold, torn from Éomer and Théodred’s mahtar.

The fury that rose in Éowyn’s chest might have been her own, but it was drowned under the storm of grief and fury that scalded out of her uncle. They turned, more orcs falling from their path or carelessly crushed underpaw, and to the tune of Celmund’s raw-throated howl and Lord Gimlí’s diamond-clear horn, they leapt-

And floated, for a heartbeat, suspended above the battle below. It seemed to Éowyn, in that half a moment, that she could see every man and woman of the Mark who was fighting to save the treasure of their greymanes and children in the caves, fighting for the slightest hope of victory.

It was a slim hope. Even Éowyn, who had held onto some hope for their future as her uncle faded into decrepitude and all seemed lost, could not deny that. It had been hard to buoy their people up against Mithrandir’s departure, even with Lord Aragorn to help Uncle bolster their spirits, and the darkness seemed very dark indeed.

Even Éowyn, White Lady of the Golden Hall, riding with Théoden Ednew in the golden mahtar, could not banish these shadows. 

\- and  _ hit.  _ The mahtar’s claws screamed across the Uruk’s breastplate, tearing free the strip of brilliant gold that was not the monster’s to wear, and Éowyn sank into the pure violence that was pouring across the bond. This was Uncle’s vengeance, raw and painful in a way that slaughtering the other two Uruk Hai who had descended into the valley had not been, and she would let him lead.

He was her King, after all.

* * *

“Ho, Mithrandir!”

Éomer had not expected to find the wizard so far from Aragorn of the Dúnedain - no, he had seen Aragorn’s kingliness and put it together with the stories Uncle had always told of the influence Mithrandir had wielded over the Stewards of Gondor, and drawn his conclusions. He had shared them only with Éowyn, who had seemed more contemplative than usual about such distant politics as the throne of Gondor, and had decided that a man such as Aragorn might not be such a grim fate for Gondor as Boromir of Minas Tirith had feared of returning kings.

Boromir was dead too, Éomer remembered. How strange that he and Théodred should have died so close together, an unhappy mirror of their fellowship in life.

“Well met, Marshal,” Mithrandir said, still gleaming-white despite the rain and hard riding between here and the Hornburg. “And you, captain, and you - I come to hasten your journey, Éomer.”

“Hasten us?” Éothain said, dismayed. “We are riding as hard as we can without exhausting the horses, Mithrandir - if we ride any harder they won’t have legs for battle.”

“Aye,” Éomer said, watching the way Firefoot, prouder even than Éomer himself, was deferring to Mithrandir’s companion, regal Shadowfax. “For their King, they will.”

“Come now, Éomer, son of Éomund,” Mithrandir called, already turning back for the Hornburg. “Come now, or not at all!”

  
  


* * *

Éowyn bound the wound on her uncle’s arm once Lord Erkenbrand had sewn it near as neat as First-Healer Cwenhild might have done. The Hornbug buzzed like a beehive as all their gathered warriors sought to shore up what defences they had left, but in the midst of it all, Théoden King was still.

Éowyn did not like his stillness. She did not trust it. She had only ever seen him still before in despair.

“Rise, Uncle,” she said, once the bandage was tied off and his sleeve pulled down once more. Her fingers lingered on the goldwork at his cuff, but she kept her eyes on his. “Rise, Théoden King. Your people have not worn themselves to the bone in defence of the Hornburg for you to take your rest!”

“You will cut yourself on that sharp tongue, sweet one,” he warned her - but he rose. “Aye, perhaps Théoden King has one more sally in him. What say you, niece?”

“I say we send the boys and girls down to the greymanes and the babes,” she said, taking his worn hands in her own and holding tight. “I say we send them out through the tunnels, and have them bring down the tunnels behind them - I say we send them to a scant hope of refuge, while we guard their backs.”

Théoden King kissed her brow, and near at hand, the golden mahtar hummed once more to life.

“With the dawn, then,” he said. “With the dawn!” he cried, and the buzzing stopped. “For Rohan! For her people! We will ride!”

* * *

Éothain’s focus had a clarity like still water, and Éomer was glad of it - his own nerves were jangling like scaled armour, and Éothain’s steadiness was just what he needed to shoulder this burden.

_ Olos  _ hummed as they neared the precipice, slinking through the gathered ranks of all the riders Éomer had been able to find. The dawn was close behind them, brighter for Mithrandir and Shadowfax, King of Horses, and the valley below seemed darker than midnight. 

Somewhere down there, Éowyn was fighting. Somewhere in the deep, his uncle was waiting for him to bring a rearguard. 

It had been three days, Mithrandir had said, since battle commenced. Éomer  _ hoped  _ that they were still down there.

“Grief has made a pissant of you, old man,” Éothain said. “Have faith! Nothing short of the Shadow himself could fell the White Lady, I am sure of that.”

Éomer had called Théodred a pissant, on that terrible morning. He hoped Éothain echoing his words was not a bad omen.

From below, the valley rang out with Helm’s horn. Éomer’s throat was thick with fear, fear that someone had thought to sound the horn to honour the King’s death, or the Lady’s.

“Théoden King stands alone,” Mithrandir called over his shoulder, and Éomer forced himself from paralysis - Théoden King would never stand alone. Éowyn Théodwynsdottir would never allow it. No son or daughter or Rohan would ever allow it.

“Not alone,” Éomer said, fierce enough to draw laughter from Éothain. 

_ Olos _ seemed to sing. Around her, the rearguard gathered.

When she leapt -

Suspended in the air, for just a moment, Éomer could see the golden mahtar tearing through the panicked masses of the orcish army, and joined Éothain in laughter. Yes, the valley was the swirling void he had so feared, yes, the Deeping Wall was broken and the Hornburg wounded, but what did that matter when the summer and spring of Théoden King and Éowyn of Aldburg were leading a roaring column of eorlingas into that shadowed fray?

\- the Rohirrim rode in her wake, war cries clashing like bells against the lingering call of Helm’s horn.

* * *

Éowyn startled at the flash of Mithrandir’s pale dawn on the lip of the valley, but laughed when the dawn turned green and golden and brought with it the thunder of an éored, two, three! Oh, how she laughed, she and Uncle tossing aside orcs like chaff as they raced to meet Éomer and Éothain in the green mahtar, while all around them their riders were renewed, just as the King had been, by Mithrandir’s magic.

But this time, there were no spells or wizards’ games - just Éomer, rallying their people as only his great heart could. Éowyn’s own heart felt overful, with joy and relief and love all at once, and she started to sing as Isengard’s great and terrible army dissolved before them, felled or scattered by Rohan united under the House of Eorl.

The singing grew and rose around her, Sungiffu’s voice near lost and Celmund’s rasping, but there was also Éothain’s booming tunelessness and Lord Erkenbrand’s beautiful voice and bold Adgith’s voice so high and sweet. The singing grew and rose like the dawn, and Théoden King laughed to hear it.

The green mahtar landed on the final Uruk, the biggest and ugliest of them all, and brought it to the ground with a crash like the end of the world. Her claws had never cut so cruelly, and black blood flashed across her spring-time flanks like war paint. 

The singing grew louder. To Éowyn, it seemed to drown out the death-rattle of Saruman the White’s black army.

As the dregs of Isengard’s host were crushed underhoof, Éowyn set the golden mahtar on a path to meet its green sister, and her brother. Théoden King seemed almost shocked, silent in joy and pride, but Éowyn was eager to be free of the mahtar so she might greet Éomer and together join the singing.

“Never have I been so glad to see  _ your _ ugly face,” she said, clambering down from the golden mahtar to throw herself into Éomer’s waiting arms. “And well for you that we had broken their ranks!”

“I am glad to see you alive as well, sister,” he teased, kissing her brow and gathering her so tight in his arms that she felt, for a moment, as close to him as the scant few times when they had shared a mahtar. When he released her, it was only as far as she could escape with his arm around her waist. “Every day, Rohan’s debt to her Lady grows.”

“And every day,” she told him, “the Lady’s love for Rohan grows ahead of it.”

Uncle draped a heavy, tired arm over Éowyn’s shoulders, kissing her temple and smiling. He lifted his hand and touched his fingers to Éomer’s jaw with a tenderness almost painful to look upon, and Éomer’s eyes filled with tears. Éowyn had seen him offer such a blessing to Théodred on his safe return from patrol of the Mark a dozen dozen times, and to see him offer it to Éomer seemed sacred, somehow. An acknowledgement such as they had not dared share, among themselves, that Théodred was truly gone.

With the sun slipping into the valley like a balm, they were lined all in noonday goldwork, and to Éowyn’s eye, that seemed a blessing on them both from Théodred.

“Come, Éomer - come,” Théoden King said to his Second Marshal and heir. “Let us all rest a while. I would hear of your journey, and we will tell you of ours.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shouts to L, May, Eli, Jo, Hester, Never, Brad, and Sarah for handholding me through this, as always!


End file.
